Little Dancing Bears
by vanillaclouds101
Summary: Darya Surkova knew what it was like to be a hunter. A predator. She'll know what it's like to be the prey. The only way to get out of a bear trap is with the help of eight other bears, all living the same lives.
1. Chapter 1

A visible smoke filled the air, wrapping itself around a thin, graceful neck, smothering until it entered her being through flaring nostrils and an open mouth. Darya wiped the sweaty droplets off her upper lip as she poured the rose-tinted liquid in its glass, topping it with a thin lime slice. "Your cosmopolitan," she laid it firmly on its coaster and pushed it towards the customer. No response, and she was back at the end of the bar, cleaning dirty glasses littered with lipstick stains and fingerprint smudges. Darya had long considered Embers Bar & Grill was like a half glass of beer: never sure if it was halfway full or halfway empty, but positive that it was only filled with the cheap stuff.

Everything around her was cheap; the cheap, shitty alcohol she served, the cheap, shitty glasses she served them in, and most importantly, the cheap, shitty people she served them to. Darya tossed her rag on the bar with irritation and narrowed her eyes on the cocktail glass on her fist, because _goddamn lipstick stain won't come off it_. Cheap.

She didn't hear the front door open or slam close like it did every time someone came in, but there, at the end of the bar, was a brand new customer. Darya assumed the woman was new, because never in her eight months of working had she ever seen someone like that. Not even remotely like that, she would've remembered quite clearly. The woman (the sweaty, dirty, _underwear clad_ woman) wasn't perched on the maroon vinyl seat at the bar that was bursting with stuffing. She stood solitude, arms at her sides but slightly floating out like there was a breeze going through her, ripped strands of her see-through gown tickling her bare legs. Darya gawked unashamedly.

 _What the fuck. Did nobody fucking care about the mental patient_ _in_ _the bar? What the—_

Something burst in her mind, so sudden, like a firecracker being released onto the surface of her brain and suddenly exploding into dozens of pieces, scattering around in her head and ricocheting off the walls of her skull. The shot glass fell from her hand and onto the wooden floorboards, emitting a crack that sounded too much alike to how her mind felt.


	2. Chapter 2

A steady,rhythmic throbbing pushed against Darya's head like a 15 lbs. weight. It sounded like a heavy drum, slowly but consistently beating and beating and _beating and beating and_ —

"Wake up, wake up. I didn't hire you so you could stare at the fuckin' walls all day."

The damp smack on the back from a wet rag rattled Darya from whatever she was stuck in, and she turned to her co-worker and makeshift employer. "I'm wiping the tables down." She spoke dully, but the irritation was there, and a towel came from her stain ridden apron to prove that, _yes, I am working, and if you hit me with that towel again I'm going to_ —

"Seeing naked angels again?" Darya blinked twice before turning toward her table with a scowl. _Fuck off_. "Oh," Grayson tittered as he scolded himself. "No, no, no . . . that was just the drugs playing little games on you, wan'nit?" _Fuck you_. She never should have told him about last night, it was embarrassing enough just thinking about it herself. She scooped handfuls of complimentary peanut shells off the grimy table and tossed them on the floor, onto Grayson's brown leather boots that had a little too much heel on them for a man. Grayson hissed and let the rag smack against her arm, stinging just the slightest bit. She would clean them later, when she had the broom and dust pan out. Right now, what she wanted was to go home. Pop in some ibuprofen or whatever would destroy the hammering migraine she's had since last night. Go to sleep.

 _Sleep_. There was nothing more desired than going into that painlessly soft lull into unconsciousness. It wasn't something to be desired, but something she needed. She obviously needed it. She looked like shit. And maybe it was because she looked like shit, or maybe the steady silence that accompanied her became too heave to sit with, but Grayson let out a wisp of annoyance that wasn't truly there and snapped that silence in half.

"What's wrong, eh?" He prodded, squinting his olive drab eyes. "You've been moody since yesterday. Not saying that you're not always moody, just . . . moodier. Pissy, you know."

 _Yeah, I know_ , Darya mused to herself, but quietly gritted out a "Migraine," before wiping down her next table, her boots crackling against the peanut shells on the floor.

There had been a dripping, oozing rain when Darya came to work, but it only turned insufferable by the time she left Ember's. It was a sticky type of rain that cloaked her body with a layer of natural sweat and water the longer she walked in it. It wasn't a long walk back to her apartment, not long enough to deserve a car ride, anyways. And yet, by the time she made it to her door, she dripped with muggy drops and let them trickle down her body and onto her creaky wooden floors that lost their shine years before she had ever moved into the place.

She didn't bother flicking the lights on. She passed her worn couch complete with equally worn pillows, knocked her little toe off of her short coffee table (she couldn't even muster up a curse to honor the pain she felt), and entered her decorative bedroom with a feeling of _relief_ and _surrender_. It was euphoric, stripping off her clothes and staring at her bed like it was something to seduce.

Darya only managed to peel off her jacket before she collapsed into the bed.

* * *

Authors Note: Hi! This is my first story ever on fanfiction (my first story published ever, really) and if you're reading this and like it, I'd like to say a big thank you! Darya is my OC that will be telepathically linked with the other eight sensates and will be involved in the regular storyline. And since this is my first story, constructive criticism is totally welcomed. This story might also take awhile to update, so I apologize in advance. Thank you to all who followed, faved, and reviewed!


	3. Chapter 3

Darya woke up to soft sheets intertwined through her jean-clad legs. She wasn't sure how long she had been asleep, a good few hours, if she was lucky, but she was faintly aware that she still had her (uncomfortable) boots on, her feet hanging over the edge of her bed like weights, and she kicked them off and let them thud to the floor. _It must've stopped raining_ , she thought, hearing nothing but tittering, chirping birds from outside. It was a nice sound. Something she didn't usually stop to listen to. Her body groaned as she folded into herself, buried deeper in the pristine white blankets as she—

Oh my god. _Oh my god._

Darya shot up in the bed and smashed the base of her back off of a headboard that didn't belong to her, staring at the blankets that were definitely _not_ purple and mildly stain ridden, such as the ones that accompanied her bed. None of this belonged to her. Not the blankets, not the bed, not _anything_ in the clean based, frighteningly spotless . . . what, bedroom? Apartment? Whatever it was, _wherever she was_ , Darya ripped the blankets off of her body and threw them to the side, letting her feet tentatively shift closer and closer to the carpeted floor until her toes felt the plush rub of the fabric. She shivered at how realistic it felt because _this is not real, this cannot be real_. Her legs could barely hold her weight as she stood up.

 _Don't forget to breathe. Keep breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathebreathebreathebreathe._

A soft, guttural snore had Darya's head snapping towards the sound. It came from— _ha, fuck me_ , she forgot how to breathe again—a dog, curled in the corner of the room on its bed and twitching in its sleep, probably chasing the mailman in its dreams. Darya closed her eyes and exhaled shakily. _Ignore it_ , she whispered in her mind, afraid something nasty would hear her and send her to another terrifying place that wasn't her apartment. As she continued her exploration of the room she inhaled again and took in the stench of something floral. A perfume or air freshener maybe.

 _Or soap_ , she thought as she heard the pounding reverberations of water hitting surface. And as she crept oh so slowly through the doorway of the exquisite bedroom, looking past the clear glass panel that acted as a wall in what was clearly a large and artistically designed apartment, Darya saw the naked figure basking under the open, steaming shower. It was a woman, a skinny woman with surprising mounds of impressive muscle layered over natural womanly fat, and she stared at Darya through the open door of her shower, watching as she opened her mouth, shaping it for words that would never come out. The beat of the water overruled the weight of the silence. No words were ever exchanged, but a rising hum slowly drove over the beating water, turning into two very different shrieks of the same general emotion: terror. Darya fumbled through the doorway as the raven haired woman backed into the corner of her shower, pale arms hiding what was already seen, mouth baring a row of fine teeth that looked menacing as she screeched. Darya felt her feet tripping over themselves and she could feel herself falling when—

She burst through her bathroom door and stumbled into her bedroom—her real bedroom—clinging to her wooden dresser as the door bounced off the paint-peeled wall and into her shoulder. Her palms sweat as she busted her lungs full of air and released it violently. Tucking her chin to her chest, she felt the lurch of her stomach travel to her throat, her mouth wetting as she turned and stumbled back into her bathroom. _Oh, Jesus fuck, don't be sick don't be sick don't be sick_ , the mantra was emptied into the toilet as she heaved, letting go of the beer and whatever else she had eaten yesterday. _Was that yesterday?_ She didn't know. She didn't really care, not enough to compete with what had just happened to her, what she just experienced. Hot, stinging tears pricked at her eyes as she spit into the water again.

She was going out of her mind, was really going out of her fucking mind.

* * *

Authors Note: I'm actually pleased yet disappointed with this chapter. Pleased with how quickly I managed to get it done, disappointed with how I wrote it. Just a warning, chapters are usually gonna be short. And I'll be writing more about Darya and her life soon, so there will be new characters! Thanks to everyone who followed, faved, and reviewed!


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